


the one about bagels

by Tobiko



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: learned and grown, that would have been nice, what if the monsters had gotten development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 10:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19904179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobiko/pseuds/Tobiko
Summary: Pan tries to convince his sister not to kill the nice worker at Noah's Bagels. It's a work in progress.





	the one about bagels

**Author's Note:**

> For Julia Appreciation Week!

“If you want to continue to eat delicious bay-gels, you cannot kill the server Sister,” the Monster explained in a muted, patient tone. His sister glared at him, sending a spike of fear through him before she let out a low grumble and stepped away from the counter and the now slightly freaked looking woman behind the Noah’s Bagels counter.

He nodded satisfaction and followed her to the waiting area at the end of the counter. Since his sister, now going by the moniker Ora and attempting to learn about the humans and their strange often needless customs, had joined him he had gone back to a subservient role and it filled him with some… “anxiety” to correct her. That was the word, he thought. He wished he had someone to tell him, but unlike Ora’s Julia, the Eliot did not speak to him in his head. Eliot was not strong enough, not god enough, to do so. He remained in the Happy Place for now, until Eliot’s “friends” found him an adequate uninhabited body to house him.

“This one makes good foods,” he said softly, smiling at the girl behind the counter toasting his Everything Bagel.

“We could find another to make good food,” Ora complained.

“But what if she is the best? Quentin explained this to me, that humans have talents that are not shared amongst them all. What if she is the best bay-gel maker?”

“Hrm,” Ora grumbled again, glaring at the woman until the woman quailed under her stare. “I do not like it, Pan.”

“Pan”. That was the name he had adopted when the “friends” had agreed to help him and Ora find new bodies on the condition that they leave the Eliot and godling Julia and leave Earth for a new home once this task was completed. Ora would have said “no”, _had_ said no, but Julia was powerful enough that she was left as a voice in Ora’s head and any day now would be able to usurp the power of her body back, slowly gaining control enough to near wipe Ora from existence. She was too powerful and if they weren’t careful they’d be Unmade by the young godling. She was something New, and her newness was a danger to them both. So different bodies and unexplored new worlds as homes it was.

Pan found he would… miss the humans. Miss the “friends”, though they would not miss him in kind.

Ora began to push the straw dispenser over and over, littering the counter with plastic straws. She froze in that way that she did when Julia was speaking and her dark rimmed eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I can do as I please,” Ora intoned, but she stopped pushing the lever and stepped away, crossing her arms over her chest.

Pan wondered again what it would have been like if the Eliot was able to commune with him. Would he be under Eliot’s command as Ora was under Julia’s? Subjected to the whims of the addicted narcissist? It was strange, but Pan envied Ora her connection with Julia even if the girl was clearly mad. A mixture of kindness, blind ambition, and stubbornness that made godling Julia Wicker both parts benevolent godling and volatile liability. 

“One everything bagel with loch shmear, one asiago cheese with extra plain!” The girl behind the counter called out.

Ora went and snatched her bagel from the girl. Pan took his more gently and said, “Ora, politeness-” 

“A human folly,” Ora growled.

Pan waited as Ora’s jaw worked.

“Thank… you,” Ora bit out. The girl bobbed her head hurriedly and scuttled away.

Ora snarled under her breath and stomped her feet. “Childish,” Pan thought but did not say, for Ora was not above ripping out his throat and scattering his essence to the winds, which would doom them both. He was fairly sure that godling Julia was powerful enough to stop Ora mid-swipe but better not to chance it. Besides, he had been childish as well, for thousands of years. It seemed silly to judge.

Ora’s teeth tore into the bagel and cream cheese smeared across her cheeks as it leaked from the sides. She chewed like it was a challenge but she could not hide the small smile that grew across her face at the taste.

Pan beamed. He leaned forward. “Did you know that there are hundreds, thousands of types of cheeses now? They figured out how to take the milk from a cow-”

“I know what cows are and cheese is,” Ora said over a mouthful of food.

Pan deflated some. “I thought if you knew more about humans and what they have made-”

“ _Humans_ tore my body to shreds and stuffed me inside them for godlike power,” Ora snarled. Her anger was frightening but was somewhat undermined by the cream cheese still on her cheeks.

Pan looked down at his as yet untouched bagel. “… that is true.”

“They’re as bad as the gods. They don’t know what to do with us so they locked me away just as the gods locked you away. Used us, tossed us aside.”

“They are not like gods. Most aren’t. They are weak and fragile.” Pan lowered his voice and looked around.

“Frightened, mewling creatures who would sooner destroy us than-” Ora paused, ground her teeth. She was silent, listening to a voice that Pan could not hear. Angrily she took another bite of bagel and chewed.

“What does… she say?” Pan asked hesitantly after a few minutes of silence.

Ora’s narrowed gaze met Pan. Slowly, as if it pained her, Ora said woodenly, “She says that humans… will understand us as flawed beings better than gods.”

“We are creatures of want, and we were made as such. We were punished for it,” Pan said, some of his old anger threatening to sweep him under. He closed his eyes and took a breath. Quentin had said he should practice “mindfulness” and Penny had suggested “deep breathing”. No one had made such suggestions to Ora yet, not that he had heard. Perhaps Julia had. 

“I am not flawed,” Ora grumbled, but there was less fight in the statement. The gods had told them often enough they were mistakes, all the times they had tried to kill him and his sister.

There was something wrong. The hunger. The _need_. 

The thing of it was it was _less_ , now, surrounded by the creations of the humans. 

He could see the way the tension left Ora’s body as she saw the choices of the world, experienced all there was to experience. There was always new, always _more_. As creatures of want the modern era fed them well. 

“I want something sweet,” Ora said suddenly, wiping her arm across her lips and clearing away most of the cream cheese. “Something I have not yet tried. Is there something I have not tried yet?” There it was, that need. If it wasn’t satisfied, Pan knew, it would chew through Ora to her core and make her miserable with desire.

“Oh sister,” Pan said, smiling ear to ear. ‘There is _always_ something else.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Monster's Sister (or as I like to call her Ora) was hot as heck. I'd have loved for her to stick around for a few eps puzzling out the world the way Pan got to and meanwhile conversing with Actual Goddess Julia Wicker, her unwelcome conscience.


End file.
